Finding the treasure inside financial reporting
Wandering Cooks has come close to financial catastrophe more than once. This is not an unusual experience for start ups. Thankfully, we’re doing well now. That’s no accident. And it’s the reason that...
View ArticleSaying Goodbye to Jo
Jo’s packed up, hugged a hundred goodbyes, and driven away to her future. Ahead of her, 6 months spent on the road in her troopy (Hans, @troopy_on_tour) with her man (Tom), making their way back to...
View ArticleSupporting farmers beyond Instagram
The news of another farmer closing for business reaches us today. That’s the third this year. I’m not going to mention them by name. Like most food businesses that close, these farms have quietly...
View ArticleCrafting Hyperbole
When we begin food businesses, we knead care into our meals with pride and excess. Everyone loves the taste of craft, and craft persists. It’s why workshops on old skills oversubscribe and cookbook...
View ArticleThanks for the criticism
I know it’s normally ‘thanks for the feedback’, but let’s be frank. It’s the bad stuff that stinks. We get bad feedback sometimes. Everyone does. Easiest thing to do with bad feedback is to label it...
View ArticleExperiencing you experiencing us
People walk into Wandering Cooks looking for a job quite often these days. The more considered of them often send us an email, too. Either way, they come equipped with cvs to do their explaining: I...
View ArticleZombie apocalypse is a shopping mall full of chain stores
We do a lot of tasks here every week: serve booze, make coffee, clean tea towels, open doors, water gardens, put out menus, clean toilets, order supplies, enter receipts… Tasks are knowable, recordable...
View ArticleLetting things go, like the chicken stock
The day is done. I thought there’d be more to it than one long pouring of morning into midday into afternoon, punctuated less by meetings than their interruption. Let’s break there and find each other...
View ArticleLeaving Fish Lane
Walking through Melbourne, the brick walls are dense with their stories. I don’t know them. The small square at the top of the street emptied of activity doesn’t seem to be for me either. Houses...
View ArticleCan you help us find a new home?
I need to be careful not to mention Melbourne and leaving Fish Lane in the same page (whoops did it again). Let me be clear – I really do want to continue Wandering Cooks in Brisbane. Yes, sometimes I...
View ArticleThe first inkling
As my search for another venue begins, I think back to when I was first hatching my business dreams 7 years ago. Back then, I wasn’t dreaming up an incubator like Wandering Cooks. I wanted a cafe, a...
View ArticleIf meat branding was like cigarette packets
At Wandering Cooks, we care so much about what meat our world eats. Why? It feels almost droll to say, because it’s been said so many times before. Fuck it I’ll say it anyway… most meat is produced in...
View ArticleArtful Money
Business owners share some desires with artists. They start businesses because they’re perfectionists. Control freaks. They hope to dictate forms of expression, without compromise. They want freedom....
View ArticleWhen life gives you cumquats
Every year, one of our lovely (and most stylish) customers lets us know she’s finally done all she can with her cumquat glut. And every year, I can’t say no. I refuse to let go of the preserver in me....
View ArticleThe world’s most avid cookbook fan?
I would be lost without them. Even with all there is to learn from family, and the slogging away in kitchens many of us have done, to cook without cookbooks feels like… isolation. Cookbooks are...
View ArticleBusiness Gardener
Gardening is a great metaphor to mix with business, particularly when you’re tending a business like Wandering Cooks. I didn’t follow traditional business models when I created this place the first...
View ArticleIs this what viability feels like?
These days, more often than not, I’m missing thoughts to write in this blog. Sure, week by week I’ve scrape together sentences… and there’s usually something glinting in them, something sharp,...
View ArticleAll my worries
And on reflection, perhaps someone else’s worries, too… What have I just done? have I fucked it all up? I’ve fucked it all up. the downward spiral… this is it. I’ve committed to too much… how will I...
View ArticlePlacing our faith in tubers
I ordered a whole heap of turmeric, ginger and galangal tubers for our garden. Looking at them now, I’m dubious they’ll ever shoot green and grow. They’re so damn dormant. So unviable-looking. Turmeric...
View ArticleBrave ones like you
The below statements are all based on actual conversations. Some (not all), are definitely about us. Everything’s possible pre-launch, that is, before an idea goes live. We’ll get hundreds of people to...
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